


Missing the Memories of You

by HamishHolmes



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 10:56:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1742252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HamishHolmes/pseuds/HamishHolmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is what happened when Bones and Jim where reminded of what they had lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bones

The flat was not big, but it suited Bones perfectly, after all he rarely spent more than a couple of hours there each day and he was asleep for most of it. For that reason rooms were half painted in clashing colours and none of the furniture matched. But it suited Bones fine. The bathroom was always leaking and the only thing that worked in the kitchen was the microwave. But it suited Bones fine. When he had been taken off active duty with Starfleet, he’d got himself a small job at a local practice where he had a normal 8 o’clock start and a clear 6 o’clock cut off after which he could refuse to treat people. He certainly didn’t need to be up until midnight every day wondering who he was going to have to re-stitch when the away team stumbled back on board. Instead he was awake at midnight, lying in his bed on his back and watching the ceiling that never changed and wondering why he couldn’t sleep. His mind was as empty as he felt whenever he was awake. Whilst he slept, twisting and indefinable ghosts danced through his dreams, nightmares ever present and space haunting him more than ever. He would wake in a cold sweat and head straight out into the city, wandering the streets and visiting medical libraries until the bakery where he always ate breakfast was open and then from there he went straight to work. After work, he went out, gambled, drank and tried to avoid the tedious flirts who inhabited every bar this side of the enterprise, wherever she was. When he could no longer stand people being in his personal space, he headed home, microwaving something that he’d bought from the all hour supermarket and then falling into bed to stare up at the ceiling again. It was a weird life, but it suited Bones fine. Then one day, he finally decided to sort out his flat. He bought himself tins of paint and set about making all the walls the same colour. When he got to the living room, he decided that he would clean out his drawers too, because he was in his cleaning zone and he knew to take full advantage of it when he could. So he pulled all the drawers out and sat with them in a circle round him. He recognised the crap on top as the junk that he’d chucked in there without thinking about it over the past month. Scraping it off, he found gum wrappers from years ago and old birthday cards from people that he knew vaguely. He began throwing the rubbish into a big bin bag, enjoying the sensation of getting rid of all of the things he’d kept because he didn’t have a bin and needed somewhere to put all his stuff. In fact when he had emptied all the drawers, he found the only things he wanted to keep were his cameras, his hypo-sprays, his old Starfleet uniform and his medal that he was awarded for medical services to Starfleet. He was just putting them back into the drawers when he found a small corner of the lining that wasn’t stuck down and when he lifted it, he found a photograph. He turned it over in his hands. It was a photo of the crew of the enterprise that they had taken just before he had left Starfleet. They were all smiling and laughing, even Spock was doing his small smile thing. Bones sat back, letting his back fall against the wall. He looked down at the picture, staring into its depths, staring at the faces of everyone in turn. It had been so many years since he had last stepped foot on his ship and into his med-bay to patch up his crew and his captain. He didn’t even know what had happened to them. They could be dead for all he knew. His fingers traced lightly over the top of the picture, trying to remember the little things that he swore he’d never forget. What did Jim sound like when he was drunk and how did Sulu laugh? How did Chekov pronounce his ensign code and how did Spock’s face change almost imperceptibly as Jim decided to go with his gut instead of protocol? How had Uhura dealt with her check-ups and how had Scotty’s eyes lit when the ship wasn’t functioning properly? A lump rose in his throat. Sure he’d seen vid-casts of them that had been sent back to Earth from the Enterprise, but nothing where they had mentioned him or looked like they missed him. Nothing. He missed them though. He hadn’t thought about it, hadn’t realised it in years, but he really did. The photo crumpled slightly as Bones’ head fell forward and tears began to fall, hitting his jeans and creating constellations of pain across the denim.


	2. Jim

Captain Jim Kirk was sitting in the captain’s chair, as was his custom, and he was watching out of the front screen into the dark night that they were travelling through, as was his custom, and he was listening to Spock rabbit on about something, as was his custom. 

Spock was actually talking about their course and how to correct it. Jim nodded in a non-committal way.

“Captain,” said the Vulcan, “I don’t believe that you were actually listening to me.”

“Yes I was, Spock; that’s ridiculous,” said Jim, leaning forward in his chair.

“Well then, do you agree that we should go past Alpha Theto II, as we go towards our destination?” said Spock, his voice level.

“Yes, yes, absolutely,” said Jim, grateful that he had got away with not listening to the man.

“I never suggested going past Alpha Theto II; we’re not even in its vicinity. So what is actually bothering you?”

“Nothing,” said Jim, ice in his voice and the Vulcan did the most logical thing and dropped the subject.

It was not until later that evening when the crew were waiting to be addressed and briefed on their latest mission by Jim that Sulu noticed that something was wrong. He stammered through his speech and sighed a lot, and ducked off the screens as quickly as physically possible whilst still giving over the relevant information. Sulu wasn’t satisfied with this and the minute the captain checked out, he headed off the bridge and handed off to his replacement and went off, weaving through the corridors of the enterprise until he found Jim, sitting with his back against the wall watching the doorway to the med-bay with lidded eyes.

“What’s up, captain?” he said, sliding down beside him and looking across at the wall.

He couldn’t see anything of interest through the small window in the med-bay door, and the wall was as plain as all the rest of the corridors on the Enterprise.

“Nothing,” his monotone voice was so different to the way he usually spoke.

“Well, blatant lying is obviously fooling me, so carry on.”

Jim smirked slightly, but didn’t actually smile which Sulu took as an awful sign.

“Seriously captain, it’s so obvious that a dead tribble could see it.”

This time, Jim really did smile, all be it tightly.

“Ah, it’s nothing, Sulu; I’m just pining for the past is all.”

Jim reached into the waistband of his trousers and pulled out a small piece of paper and tossed it lightly to Sulu, who fumbled it and picked it up from the floor, blushing very faintly. He looked down at the rumpled photograph in his hands. It was a photo of the whole crew just before Dr McCoy had left the Enterprise. Jim had put his arm around the doctor’s shoulders and was grinning widely. Sulu and Chekov were smiling too, arms around each other’s waists, just waiting for their plan to come to fruition because just after the photo was taken a large tank of water was dropped over all of their heads and soaked them all to the skin.

“I found it in the drawer the other day,” said Jim, dropping his head into his hands.

“And?” said Sulu, “it’s us, smiling and laughing, enjoying ourselves.”

“Look at me and Bones; look at how happy we are. I thought that I’d remember everything about him, like how you could tell whether he was really angry or just worried depending on the pitch of his sigh. But I can’t even really remember how he sounded when he insulted Spock and he did that nearly every day.”

“You miss him, don’t you?” said Sulu.

“I just wonder how it got to this where I sit outside the med-bay and imagine that he’s in there and that at any moment he’s going to tell me to bugger off.”

Jim sat there for so long that Sulu left, but he didn’t notice because he was too busy trying to watch the salty streams flowing down his forearms, twisting and melding.


	3. A Requested Resolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was requested as a fix to the situation.

Bones sat there for an hour or more, watching as the stars on his jeans faded to nothing leaving only mottled blue marks as their echoes. Eventually, he moved and went to lie in his bed again, staring up at the ceiling, but this time, he knew why he lay awake staring at the ceiling and fearing space. Before the worst space could do was take his life, now it had taken his whole family too. The shadows on his walls twisted into faces and uniforms, hypos and comms-units, med bays and bridges. He desperately tried to sleep, clenching his eyes shut and whispering pleas of mercy to the darkness. But when the clock on the bedside table beeped one o’clock, he gave up. Lethargically, he rolled over and sat up. He shoved his feet into trainers and pulled an oversized hoodie that he’d bought on shore leave with Jim. He grabbed his keys off the kitchen counter, slipped his wallet into his back pocket and headed out onto the street, closing his door with a slam. From the car park in front of his building he usually headed along the road to the library where he sat pressed into a corner where he could always see danger coming; he’d learned his lesson the first time he’d missed it and nearly lost Jim. But not today. Today, he was feeling sentimental so he headed out along the river bank in the opposite direction, shunning the bright lights of the city and instead melting into the shadows of the forest. He pulled his hoodie tighter round his body and his hood further over his eyes, fighting the ever pinching cold. The smell of the hoodie engulfed him, all spices and sweat. It forced him to remember the day he’d bought it, not that he needed much forcing.

_Of all the dumb places Jim could have picked for shore leave, this had to be one of the worst. No alcohol, no prostitutes and no gambling, not a great combo for attachment starved Starfleet officers. Not that Bones minded too much, but he could tell that Scotty was pissed – and not in the good way!  
Jim had told everyone onboard that they weren’t to contact him or Bones unless it was highly important, as in exploding, dying or dead important. He was going to defer all other issues to Spock but he caught the Vulcan’s glare and told people to contact Scotty instead, after all, he was already miserable without his regular shore-leave booze up, so where was the harm? With that and a final lecture from Bones about how angry he was going to be if he had to patch any of them up, the whole crew jumped ashore and instantly split. Uhura dragged Scotty off to an exotic coffee stand in a last ditch attempt to take his mind off the lack of alcohol, Sulu and Chekov raced off together and everyone pretended not to notice because they were still ‘hiding’ their relationship, Spock and Carol headed off to try and find the technology sector of the town and Jim grabbed Bones’ hand, dragging him into a whirling sea of scents and colours. They stopped at every stall, picking up strange fruits and trying to ask how to eat them in a language neither of them could really speak all that well. They smelled perfumes scented of things like _ Happiness, Past, _and_ Memories. _Bones couldn’t see the appeal himself. They even had a go on all the instruments at one man’s stall, but they only succeeded in looking like idiots and giving all the passers by a great show. They stopped at a chocolate stall boasting Klasha Beatle Chocolate and Storica fruit chocolate amongst about fifty other flavours. Bones looked at them with sceptic eyes, but Jim, as always, approached it with a childlike enthusiasm, which coupled with his large captain’s bonus, meant that they walked away with one of every flavour. Bones rolled his eyes, but he dutifully tried one of each of the flavours that Jim opened. Some of them left him spitting things discreetly into handkerchiefs whilst others found him asking for more pieces. But it was on their way back to the ship that Jim had seen a flash of his favourite shade of crimson through the crowds and hauled Bones after him as he raced in search of it. They located the fabric on a clothes stall that sold weirdly earthly clothes, but Jim didn’t care. He could see the hoodie that had caught his eye, grey text spiralling the arm and a grey pouch on the abdomen. Next to it was a matching hoodie with the colours reversed. Bones couldn’t resist the puppy dog eyes that Jim shot his way, even though he wasn’t usually a hoodie man, and bought both of them._

_“So no matter where you are in the universe, you’ll know that I’m thinking of you.”_

That’s what Jim had said, thought Bones mirthlessly, but now he bet that the exuberant man barely thought about him.

Bones kept walking, feet on automatic, hands habitually fingering the hem of the jumper. He knew where he was going, but he didn’t really care about how long it took him to get there. The forest began to get thicker and the darkness was clawing at his reasoning. He felt an almost intolerable urge to race off into the forest and never return, to hide in the darkness for eternity.  
He could see the tree that he was heading for, swathed in blackness. He reached it and began to haul himself upwards into its branches. Enjoying the scraping pain of the bar against his hands, he pulled himself up, hand over hand until he was sat with his back against the largest branch, where he had sat the first time that he’d shown Jim this tree. Jim sat on the other side so that they were back to back with only the trunk between them. He’d reached back and intertwined his fingers with Jim’s. He let his hand flop back into the same position and looked out over the river at the reflections of the stars, silently cursing them for taking everything he had. Then a warm hand slipped into his, taking him completely by surprise. In fact, he was so surprised that he fell out of the tree. The hand gripped tight and a strong arm held him up so that he didn’t hit the ground. Another strong hand gripped Bones’ forearm and Bones looked up into the eyes of his surprise and subsequent saviour, into beautiful blue eyes, framed by gorgeous blond hair.

“J ... Jim?” he asked, as the man began to pull him back into the tree.

The angle he was at meant that Jim had to pull Bones into his lap in order to stop them both falling from the tree.

“How have you been, Doctor?” asked Jim, slipping his arms around Bones waist, ‘to stop him falling off’.

“I was better before I nearly fell out of a tree because you scared me.”

“Ah, so it’s my fault now?”

“Isn’t it always?”

The two men grinned at each other, enjoying being close again after so much separation. 

“What the hell brings you to Earth, Jim?” asked Bones, sitting back slightly.

“I’ve been a Starfleet captain too long, Bones,” said Jim.

“That really answers my question,” said Bones.

“The Enterprise has a whole new crew!”

Bones nearly fell out of the tree again.

“WHAT?!”

“Yeah, Spock and Carol are going to teach at the academy, I’m doing training simulations on how to turn bad situations good, a la Kirk, Scotty and Sulu are going into star ship design, Uhura is going into translation for the council members from other planets and Chekov doesn’t know what he’s gonna do, but he knows that he’s going to follow Sulu wherever he goes.”

“But you love space and being a captain; why would you give all that up?” asked Bones, looking straight at is friend.

“Hey,” said Jim, cupping one side of Bones’ face, “I found something I love more.”

He leant forward and kissed Bones hard on the lips before pulling away at putting the arm back round Bones’ waist in case the man decided to take another dive floor-ward.

“You’re one of the family, and I can’t go to outer space without you anymore, because I love you.”

“I love you too.”

And from that night on, Bones never had trouble staring at the ceiling instead of sleeping; he always had someone to remind him that space couldn’t steal your heart.


End file.
